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Bush to open national parks to mountain bikes

Oct 14th, 2008 | WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is taking steps to make it easier for mountain bikers to gain access to national parks and other public lands before the president — an avid cyclist himself — leaves office.

The National Park Service confirmed Tuesday that it is preparing a rule to allow park managers in some cases to decide which trails to open to mountain bikers.

Once it’s finalized, the rule would take this authority away from federal regulators in Washington, who sometimes take years to decide whether to allow bicycles on individual trails.

A park service spokesman said the rule would be proposed no later than Nov. 15 in order for it to be finalized before Bush leaves office.
Source: www.salon.com/…bush_mountain_biking

Did he just save his legacy with the two wheeled crowd? Or is this going to make it easier to shut trails down?

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure.
Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

…hey, now…it was probably pointed out to him that he’s gonna need something to do when his tenure is up…

…laura’s saying “when we get back to the ranch, i’m not gonna have you lazing around the house, drinkin’ w/ yer old pals & gettin’ under foot, george !!!”…

…senior’s saying “yer gonna need something to do, young man, because there’s not a fucking think tank anywhere in the fucking world that is gonna want yer input !!!…yer just not smart enough, son, & i hope you realize that”…

…mom’s saying “georgie, when you were a kid, you always liked playing outside so you should consider that…those nice folks from that bike company gave you that fancy bike w/ the presidential seals & now you’ll have plenty of time to play on it…the girls are all grown up & lord knows laura doesn’t want ya hangin’ about so go ahead, son, enact a law…
…just don’t take any matches w/ you…we don’t want you to burn down any forests, now do we, georgie ???”…

Bush is a cyclist, he started riding when he started having knee problems. I’ve read many many stories concerning him riding.

We know have the chance to gain a lot of trail access, or at least a streamlined method of opening trails. I’m sure if it passes it’ll be a case by case bases, but at least it opens up the discussion as opposed to a blanket “NO” when it comes to trails.

There are some huge National parks out west where you could easily open up back country trails for bikes without a huge impact. The tourist trails with easy access won’t be opened but there are a lot of trails out there.

You guys seriously need to find a sense of fucking humor. Stick a flashlight up your ass…you may find it there…although Howard…in your case…I think it’ll just drop in and you will be going for another of those uncomfortable hospital visits…

It kinda makes me feel dirty. I guess there are some parks where it would actually help get some more people in(Big Bend, Great Basin…) I actually support the parks being able to make the decision on an individual basis, but there are places where it’s o.k. that bikes aren’t allowed. (horses shouldn’t be allowed into those either)

I’ll take this one any day. Bikes are low impact. Cyclists are low impact. Let us ride the frickin national parks already. Bush has done a lot of low in his time in office, including to civil liberties. At least he’s making an attempt to leave some sort of lasting positive legacy in some small way.

I can already see the sinuous singletrack that will grow in Rocky Mountain Nat’l park, and those epic through-riders can ride now from Moab to Sedona via Grand Canyon without worrying about some suck-ass park ranger “confiscating” his Blur LT because the GC is off limits.

Bring it, fools. Take it. Accept it. Don’t think too much about it except how good it is.

Geeze, the thought of bunches of gu wrappers along trails in the Grand Canyon make me kinda ill..but I’m only a tourist, seen it 2x.
My grandmother’s name was Powell though, and her father told her stories about the major.
I’ve never worked with the forest service, but I have seen the US ag dept and NRCS up close.
It was not, generally speaking, pretty.
Those guys will sell out cheap.

I mean, I’d like to think the royal idiot has one or 2 chances to do something good, something that doesn’t suck with his remaining time, but I can not believe that’s possible.

For him, it’ll be enuf to see him in the Hotter n Hell next year, and maybe speak in Austin for the 3ft rule in traffic.
The man has the midas touch stuck in reverse.

…now, if yer actually george w bush, you’d have a right to be upset w/ me…until i know that there will be no ugly ramifications from the states park edict, my respect or lack thereof for gwb will remain as constant, on high alert…

Now, then, speaking as myself, I’d say this is going to be about the ulitmate in advocacy tests for mtbers. Will this newly acquired expanse be instantly criss-crossed with trails, or will local groups (hopefully with some trail-building expertise) manage a network? More than just GU wrappers…I’d be concerned about poorly built trails that actually DO the harm that all the wackos have stated we will cause…and then the ban will pop up again.